No. 49 The fire ordeal of Siyavosh

This dramatic depiction of prince Siyavosh riding between two
huge
fires marks the culmination of a famous story, elements of which the
Shahnameh shares with the Bible and the Qur’an, in the
story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife or of Yusuf and Zulaika. In the
Iranian version Siyavosh, the son of King Key Kavus, returned to his
father’s court from Sistan in south-east Iran, where he had been
trained by Rostam. The king’s wife, Sudabeh, fell in love with
Siyavosh. When he rejected her advances, she accused him of violating
her and ‘borrowed’ her nurse’s stillborn twins as evidence.
Here, Key Kavus watches Siyavosh and his black horse emerge unscathed
from the ordeal set him, to prove his innocence or guilt.
Sudabeh, accompanied by her nurse, sees the prince’s
innocence being vindicated and anticipates her own ordeal. But the
noble Siyavosh would appeal on her behalf and the king would spare
her life.

Together with Nos.
44,
45,
46,
47,
48,
50,
53,
54 and
55,
this illustration belonged to a copy of the Shahnameh
made for
Mohammad Juki b. Shah Rokh, brother of Ebrahim Soltan (the patron of Nos.
33,
34,
35,
36,
38 and
39).
Mohammad Juki died before the
manuscript was completed. In the early sixteenth century, it came
into the possession of a later Timurid ruler, Babur, who took it to
India when he founded the Mughal dynasty there.